How to Grow a $2M Painting Business & Maximize Profit

Jon: All right, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the Price. Sell. Paint. podcast. We have a fun guest today, Ty Brown from Littleton, Colorado. Ty, thanks for being on the podcast.

Ty Brown: Well, thanks for having me, John. I greatly appreciate it.

Jon: Yeah, it's been exciting. We met two years ago, I think at the PCA conference and I was impressed by your story. I've been impressed by kind of where you guys have gone over the last two years, two and a half years of business, maybe three, depending on how you frame it. But love to hear about your story kind of in your own words. So maybe we can tell everybody about that.

Ty Brown: Yeah, so it was great meeting you at Expo. I remember that conversation we had at Sherwin's dinner. I sat down and I think we chatted for a good hour, hour and a half maybe. Not on my end, but on your end. But Michael, I think you have a similar story about meeting John. Did you originally meet John at Expo as well?

Jon: There was some tequila involved, so it's hard to really frame the time. On my end, there was.

Michael Murray: We did, we met over breakfast. So there's a little bit less tequila, but for sure. We met in Phoenix 2020 right before COVID.

Ty Brown: Yeah, well, it was great. And I didn't tell—I don't think I've told you this—but after we chatted that night, we both got up and said, "I'm going to go off and mingle." And I went directly to my car, directly to my hotel, and downloaded everything I'd learned from you in that conversation. And that was one of the biggest struggles for me at my first expo—I would just go back to my room at night and my head was spinning. I could not sleep.

Jon: Thanks, man.

Ty Brown: So yeah, to share my story, I started initially—I've been in executive management in the action sports world for 20 years. So my background's in business. Painted a summer too when I was younger. Really wanted to get out of the grind. So I was looking to get into trades. Didn't know what I wanted to do. Was looking into different types of businesses. I figured I settled on painting.

I joined Painting Business Pro with Eric Barstow. So that was my initial start, which was amazing. I wouldn't be sitting here today if it wasn't for Eric Barstow. It was a great course to get started, especially without a lot of painting experience. I was really able to kind of get off the ground running.

I did have a little hiccup. I was starting as basically a side hustle, really looking for an exit out of my executive role. I did end up getting sick, had to take some time off. And when that happened, it made me decide I'm going into painting full time. I need freedom, flexibility, need to spend some more time with the family. So I said I'm going head down full speed ahead in the painting. And that was in 2020.

So I tried to get things started. I ran for about a month or so. I was going through some surgeries and some treatment and ended up having to stop. I couldn't do it. Got my feet back on the ground in almost mid-2021 when I came out of all that. So that was a partial year. A lot of learning.

And then going into 2022 was our first year. So first year, we did about $800,000, a little over $800,000 our first year. Second full year, going into 2023, which was last year, our second full year, we did $1.5 million. So just some aggressive growth there.

We are now—call this our third full year—we're budgeted at about $2 million this year, and we're exceeding those budgets by quite a bit. I'm in the process now of trying to add some bodies to kind of be able to produce and sell what's coming in. So we'll see how that goes, but so far it's been so good. So yeah, everything's been great. I am so glad to be part of the industry. I am so passionate about the industry. I love what I do. I wake up every day and I love going to work. It's great.

Michael Murray: I mean, I'm impressed. You know, double the revenue in year two and then big time growth. We're looking at what, 25, 35% this year, year over year. That is super impressive. And I would say too, it's like the last 12 months, 18 months or so have not been easy. And something you should be really proud of, Ty. What do you attribute some of that success to? Anything specific stand out? I mean, again, this industry isn't easy.

Ty Brown: Yeah, I would contribute it a lot to—I mean, I'm a numbers guy, so I run the business by the numbers. At the end of the day, I'm not going to produce anything under 50%.

Jon: Sorry, quickly, Ty, for those listening, 50%, what are you referring to?

Ty Brown: 50% gross profit on all jobs. Yeah. So we ended up last year at 49%, a little bit lower than I expected. We had some production rate issues on some product that was sold in late 2022 and early 2023 that we had something I missed on my end that we had to kind of work through. We caught back up but fell just short of 50%. This year, year to date, we're trending at a 53.2%. So strong there.

I think a lot of the success—number one, I'm in a very competitive market. I'm a competitive person. So it's a challenge going every day and I didn't know how to sell paint when I started. And now I love going out and selling every day. I love building that rapport. I love talking to people and seeing my sales rate climb over the years has been great. So I think I'm a personal guy and I think that helps me sell.

We're also seeing a lot of referral business, which is great. There was obviously conversion. So I am shocked going into year three now of how much referral business we're actually seeing. We did invest early on in our SEO, so we're ranking very high. We aren't doing really much marketing at all besides our SEO. We're doing Facebook ads, that is it right now.

So as mentioned earlier, if I do want to tone it up, I have the opportunity to really generate some more leads. We don't do lead services. We didn't really ever dabble in lead service except for Thumbtack, which we've cut down to basically nothing now. We don't need to do lead services. We tried them and just didn't have the best success.

But we are on the verge of rolling out EDDM and some other avenues as soon as we get to add some more bodies. I'm in the process of hiring a salesperson right now. We're going through the interview process. So once I can step back, get out of the business, get out of doing 25 estimates a week—I try to stagger it 25 one week, 20 the next week, 25 to give me some time—it's taken a lot of my time and obviously I need to step back and work a little bit more on the business.

Jon: Ty, we—you know, it's the Price Sell Paint podcast. So we got to get to some sales stuff. One of the big questions I have, and I know it's on your mind as you're doing interviews today, but you're in this process of getting your first rep, someone who's going to help you with that selling in your business. Walk us through kind of what you've done so far and where you hope to get to here in the next three, six months.

Ty Brown: Yeah, so when I initially started in 2020, I was forced to run on production rates. I don't have a painting background, so that's all I knew. When someone would say, "Give me a ballpark price," I don't know. I didn't know. So I was forced to use production rates from day one. So I was using those as formulas. And in 2020, that short month that I did work, I did handwritten estimates.

And I knew going into—I remember my first exterior I signed was handwritten. I'm out there with a clipboard. I signed it on the spot, believe it or not. It was over a $7,000 exterior. It was raining, the sheet was wet. Took a photo on my phone. I left the sheet behind, so I had my copy.

Jon: I'm just happy you didn't say napkin. You said sheet. So I'm happy at least it wasn't a napkin.

Ty Brown: Yeah, we've come a long way since that. So in 2021, we started—then all my production rates were on Excel spreadsheet where I could go compile my estimate and I would transfer that. We started using Jobber. So Jobber would be our CRM. We would do our estimates through there and our production, everything all in one.

Now we did that through 2021, 2022 we started that as well, but it started to create more work for me because that transfer—I wasn't number one delivering on the site. Number two, it was just taking time. I'd come home at night and I'd have to transfer everything from my spreadsheet into Jobber, send off those proposals, and it got to the point where you're doing four or five a night and it was like, "This is not why I got into this. I got in for the freedom and to enjoy my time."

So I started looking into Paint Scout. In 2023—but into 2022—I started fooling around with Paint Scout. We started running side by side comparisons. So I would do an estimate on my spreadsheet and I'd do an estimate on Paint Scout. And really got to the point where I felt comfortable of, "Okay, we're set here, we're ready to go."

So it was early 2023 when we made the switch fully to Paint Scout. I put a lot of time in the winter of 2022 into getting it totally dialed out. I am very comfortable right now to hand that off to someone. It is literally impossible to screw up an estimate with the production rates. And I've been fine tuning them obviously throughout the course of the year.

The biggest thing that jumps out to me—from going from 2021 to 2022 to 2023, we were running at about a 40 to 41% sales conversion rate. So the amount of estimates that would actually convert. In 2023 when we switched to Paint Scout, that number jumped to 50%.

Jon: Wow.

Ty Brown: We didn't change pricing. It was just full on—it was presenting on site. It was sending a perfect proposal. And don't get me wrong, we didn't present 100% on site, but I had a rule that if I didn't present it on site, I had to have it out that evening. We wouldn't let it go more than a day. The rule this year is if I don't present it on site, it needs to be within 15 minutes of leaving there in my truck. Because you worked so hard on building that rapport with the client, you're there, you put your time in, and then you leave and they don't get it for a day or so and they forget about Ty Brown. Like, "We got an estimate, who's this guy?" And all of a sudden they have a bunch of estimates and all that work just gets thrown out the door.

So that is great to have it fine tuned going out where I'm not coming home at night, I'm not working on estimates. Now the one or two hours that I do at night, say when the kids go to bed, it's more admin stuff, taking care of that kind of stuff, but all my estimates are done by the time I get home. So that's been great. And again, I think that really added to that spike in the sales conversion rate.

Jon: Yeah. Everything you've mentioned there is the reason why Paint Scout exists. It's all the pain points I had. I want to enjoy my life. I need freedom. I wasn't happy writing bids out at night. And you know what? Those things you mentioned about delivering on site and something that's professional, like a professional proposal that resonates with their customer and builds brand. That's what wins you work. People forget this, that the urgency of someone wanting a price. And then you decide you can't get it back to them for a couple of days. I mean, you're losing every single minute you delay sending. So huge, huge deal.

Ty Brown: Yeah, and it's really helped us obviously with the follow-ups as well. So we follow up, I get a call in there, follow up a call, and I kind of stagger that. It's like, "We're still waiting for an estimate. We're still waiting for our other estimate. We're still waiting." And they wait, wait, wait, and finally it gets to the point where like, "Listen, if we don't get it from this other guy tomorrow, we're going with you." And it's almost by default.

You know, delivering it on site—I'm not a pushy sales guy, number one. I don't like when I am pushed. But it's all about, I'm presenting on site, running through it, asking them any questions. "Does this look great to you? If so, we'd love to get you on a schedule. We take a 10% deposit." If they say they need time to think about it, if they say they're still getting other estimates, we're fine. I send it off.

We do get feedback a lot of times if they say, "Hey, we got another estimate." And we always get that we're the highest or in the middle. We want to be in the middle, but we're typically normally the highest. And when our clients do get a proposal that is very low, like, "Your price is double," it's like, "Okay, well, hey, we would love to—if it's about money, definitely take that proposal, but we'd love to help you out. If you want me to review the proposal with you, I can go through, just make sure there's nothing kind of shady in there."

And we do that for clients. And most of those clients that we start reviewing that end up signing with us because they see the difference in the proposal. There's, "Well, they say it's two coats, but it's not. It's really one coat. It's a wet on wet. We're doing a two coat, wet on dry." Or I'll be reviewing a proposal with someone. I'm like, "Hey, check back in. Did you guys get any feedback from your—" "You know what? He got kind of weird and he never called me back and he disappeared. So we're going to go with you." So once they start questioning him. But yeah, I'm not a pushy sales guy.

We do get a lot of feedback from our clients and some of our competitors that are in there offering discounts to sign on the spot and won't leave. I'm not hearing the best feedback on that.

Michael Murray: I'd say for a guy that proclaims to not have a whole lot of painting knowledge, he's talking about wet on wet, wet on dry. I mean, I think he's in it now. There we go.

Ty Brown: I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot.

Jon: How many mils are you putting on there, Ty? Let's talk.

Ty Brown: You know what's funny, John, after Paint Scout X—I'm blanking—I started listening to You Can't Teach a Kid How to Ride a Bike at a Seminar. And they talk about in there, just play dumb. Don't act like you know everything. Like say, "Let me check in" and stuff like that. And I'm like, "Listen, that's weird. Did that help me in the beginning? Not knowing." But now I might go there. I have learned a lot. And luckily I surround myself with some great people and great support. I think working with, being part of the PCA, I made some connections through there. There's a lot of people that have helped me out tremendously in the PCA.

Michael Murray: Yeah. Big shout out to PCA. I mean, I think they have such great resources. I feel like every year it's just getting better and better. And I've been to a handful of expos now and the content's great. The connections, the networking, all that kind of fun stuff for sure.

Michael Murray: Ty, I want to spend some time—you mentioned it a few minutes ago. You're coming up on a big milestone in your business. You mentioned as we were just getting on the podcast right before we started recording, doing some interviews and looking to hire your first sales rep. Is that right?

Ty Brown: That is correct.

Michael Murray: Yeah. And so I just want to talk, what do you—first of all, talk about maybe that hiring process. What are you looking for? And how is looking for a sales rep gone so far throughout this interview?

Ty Brown: It's been challenging. So obviously you put a posting out there on Indeed or LinkedIn, you just get bombarded. So you're going through hundreds of resumes. I've worked in my past experience in kind of eight-figure type business roles. So I've hired a lot of people. And so I have my process of going through resumes. The first thing I look for is, I look at their job history and typically you see it's one year here, one year here, one year here, one year—and it's not a fit. So kind of looking for people that are sticking with a company, someone that obviously we can retain.

Not many painting—not many guys coming through with actually paint sales experience. I did have an interview this morning with a gentleman. He came from a larger franchise with a residential paint sales background. He was great. He was really good, really good interview.

But really, I'm just looking for someone with almost just like a good human being. I didn't know how to sell. I will train someone to sell. We have the tools in place now to hand an iPad off to someone and take measurements and it's very hard to fail. So looking for someone who, number one, will fit in with our group—myself and Keith, the project manager, that's very important.

The second is just someone who can build that rapport and someone people like. It doesn't need to be that pushy sales guy. So really that's it, just finding someone I connect with that I feel could go out and be great with our clients, because we're all about that client experience from communication, start to finish to the end, everyone happy. So yeah, looking for someone who just can connect and build that rapport. I don't think you really need the sales portion. I don't think you really need the paint portion. Really just looking for a good, genuine human being.

Michael Murray: Nice. You mentioned your expectations in regard to training. I'd love to talk a little bit about that. Obviously you haven't gone through it maybe quite yet, but you're about to. You mentioned you feel like it's going to be relatively easy to, I think you used the phrase to hand that iPad off and you've made it to the point where it should be difficult maybe for somebody to fail, at least in that aspect of it. So talk about your expectations. What kind of plans do you have for training? How long do you think that's going to take? Maybe be specific as much as you can. What are you looking forward to doing here?

Ty Brown: Yeah, so the training portion in terms of how long it's going to take, that's hard to tell right now. It depends on who the candidate would be if they have experience. But really it would be shadowing me for a long time. Hopefully a month possibly. And running through that process. I would eventually start putting them out on smaller ones. And I would keep the big ones for now.

But really it's—for me, the way I visualize training, it would be a day or two here running through our systems and Paint Scout. It's really like, "Okay, go into Paint Scout. You're creating a new estimate. Everything's automated. It's already in there waiting for you from the time a lead comes in. It's automated. If we schedule an estimate, boom, it's creating that contact in Paint Scout. So that's there."

So then it's going in and saying, "Okay, this is your job. Pick your template. Is it a—we have two categories, standard and premium. Is it a standard with body color eaves or trim color eaves? Is it vinyl windows or wood windows?" Boom, boom, we have all those templates. Just click on the template. From there, it's just teaching them how to measure. So going around, measuring, getting all the dimensions in there.

Basically the templates are set up. And really the only big variable you're adding in there is prep. So really training someone on what extent of prep is this home gonna take based on front side, left side, backside, right side. So really it's really getting out. It's really—for me, I don't think there's much behind the scenes more than there is out there just with boots on the ground and training and leading by example.

Michael Murray: Yeah, that makes sense.

Jon: Do you have a good framework around what you're expecting them to sell? Do you know kind of...

Ty Brown: Yes, so I—again, our sales rate last year was 50%. This year we're right around a 44, 45% mark. We see that kind of go up towards the end of the year. It's always a little lower. I would love for someone to be north of 40% at all times.

I did start mapping out some payment structures, pay for this role, and there would be bonus for anyone over 45% is what I have initially mapped out. I would also base this role off GP and not top line sales. As we all know, it's easy—drop your price, you can sell anything you want. So it would be based off a percentage of gross profit per job. And that's based off of 50% and above, 45% to 49.9%, and 40% and above, obviously that gets very low.

I also have in there kind of when you meet a threshold from the year. Say you sell $750,000 of gross profit dollars, which is $1.5 million, you then get an extra 1% for the remainder of the year on top of that. So kicked around a couple ideas. I don't have anything set in stone yet, but that's kind of what I'm thinking. And I think that will eliminate—and I'd love to hear what you guys think about structuring that—but I think it's gonna eliminate a lot of that from the production manager to the sales, that friction, if it's based off a GP rather than a top line sales number.

Jon: It's funny because my—I mean, there's a—what's the saying? There's a thousand ways to skin a cat. I don't know if that's relevant here or not, but in a sales compensation structure, you can do it so many ways and there's so many pros and cons depending on how you do it. So, I mean, I'll get—Michael, you can weigh in after here. But what's interesting about the gross profit method is that in a lot of cases it can actually generate more friction, not in a bad way.

But now you have sales reps that really care about the job and they're going to get in there and kind of meddle and start pointing the finger if they don't make the money they're thinking they're going to make. And so it's about creating those balances within the structure so that you don't end up having just infighting. And it's healthy. It's like a healthy, "Let's help you. Here's my vision for the project. Here's what the customer was saying. Let's work together." So that's one issue.

The other issue is timing. It sounds like the timing of getting the payments to the sales rep, because they have to wait for the job to get done or get finished, but they also have to wait for you to get the data on the job. And so they got to trust that data. They've also got to wait for you to calculate it. Now, if you're doing—we use QuickBooks and it does that very fast because we're using QuickBooks Time and all of our inputs are there. So we can generate a gross profit pretty fast, but something to be aware of because sales reps will complain about that delay.

Ty Brown: Yeah, so we are—I think one thing that's different from us is we're operating a subcontractor model. So for job costing, I mean, I'm in job costing every day, multiple times a day. We run our production through Monday and I'm on that board nonstop. What's happening is when we close out our job, the project manager gets pinged to enter that job costing right away.

Jon: Amazing.

Ty Brown: So we know that GP within—and he's normally entering. He knows he's going to get pinged that day. If all his supplies are in in the morning, he's entering it in the morning. We know it.

Jon: See, I figured when I said this, Ty, I was like, "Ty's got this figured out," but hey, you know, I just want to say it for everybody else listening.

Ty Brown: Yeah, so we know. And John, to be honest, with where production rates are set up, we rarely ever see anything fall below 50%. I mean, we never see a fluctuation in that. We know going in there, our subs have worked with us, our partners. I have most of my crews that worked for me from when I started. So we have six crews this year that are running. And they're great.

I know what they're gonna get paid on every job. I didn't know that when I first started. Now I know every job. I'm like, "Okay, this is $2,300, $2,500, this is right." So I know, and we're basically nailing. I use that as kind of a backdrop. Say when I'm giving an estimate, look at my calculations, say, "Okay, here's my labor. Yeah, this one's close." So we rarely ever have issues with this didn't fall where we need it to be in terms of gross profit.

If we do have an issue, it's normally we produce it at a higher than a 50%, then below a 50%. Because we put very generous coverage rates and spray tolerance rates in Paint Scout. So our paint numbers are always a little higher. And we use that cushion for additional GP at the end of a job, or if a subcontractor is like, "Hey, we may have missed it on this one"—which we rarely have happen. And I tell them like, "Hey, if I miss something, please let me know. We need to work this out. I need to make production rate changes on my side to make sure we don't run into this hassle, this problem going forward."

And they'll come to me if it's rare. "Hey, we met—no problem." We'll talk through it. It could be one where we talk through it and be like, "Well, listen, how long were you guys here?" "We worked 30 hours." "Actually, you made $50 an hour on this one. That's kind of good." "Yeah, you're right." Or, "No, no, no, well totally—yep, you're totally right. Here's another $400 bucks or whatever it might be." And we'll learn from that. But it's rarely that we lose out on gross profit.

Michael Murray: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think the big thing that's different—myself, John, in our painting companies, it is an employee model. And so I think there's probably a little more fluctuation because of that. So with your subs, you're basically paying a percentage of the top line revenue to them. Is that more or less how that's structured?

Ty Brown: Yeah, I look at it in two different ways. So I'll look at it as—through the production rate, I know what their hourly rate is when I pay my subs. So obviously, Paint Scout's giving me that total hours for the job and I'll times it by their hourly rate and that typically falls in—but that falls at about the 35% range is where our subs fall. That's where we ended up last year, almost spot on 35%, 35.2% or something.

Jon: Which is—I mean, if you've got things pretty dialed in where you know the time and you're being very fair, that number is a great number. I think where a lot of people get in trouble is they don't know their time. They don't know how to value it. And then they just tell us, "I do 35%," and it's just not fair. And so it's figuring out how to get that balance. That's really, really important because then it can be good for everybody. That's what we want.

Ty Brown: Yep. Yep.

Michael Murray: Ty, I want to switch gears a little bit. So one of the things that you had told us about in the prep form is you talked about professionalism and processes coming more and more into the painting industry. And it sounds like you've experienced that yourself. You talked about the handwritten estimates. Yeah, I'm recovering. My hand still hurts from writing, I don't know, 12 to 15 years of handwritten carbonless form estimates. So I can certainly relate.

And you talk specifically about possibilities of private equity coming into the painting industry and things like that. I'd love to maybe just switch gears a little bit and just hear some of your thoughts on those types of topics. Yeah, take that in whatever direction makes sense.

Ty Brown: Yeah, so I think professionalizing the industry, it's obviously going to help all of us. It's going to raise the bar and it's going to raise the expectations of the homeowner. And it's going to help eliminate some of those—I'll just call them "truck and the trucks." And it's interesting in Albuquerque, when Nick threw that stat out about the average lifespan of a painting company being 1.7 years, I was blown away.

But it kind of makes sense. To your point, a lot of people aren't looking at their costing, they aren't doing job costing job by job. And you get to the end of the year and it's like, "I didn't make anything due to their taxes, didn't make any money. Plus I owe this." And that contributes to that stat that Nick mentioned.

But I think for me, ultimately it's I want my business to run as efficient as possible. I run a very lean model, as I mentioned earlier. So if we produce what we have on the books this year with just myself and a project manager, I mean, there's—maybe it's going to be a challenge. I'm not sure anyone has done that, but that's all due to being automated. We have the systems in place. We have the processes in place to do that.

Now, again, things eventually could start consolidating down. Like Ace Hardware, for example, has bought a few painting companies here in our area. They're offering painting services. When's Home Depot and Lowe's gonna do that? So I think they're gonna wanna come in and see a company that is run very professional, number one, and has those systems in place that's kind of turnkey. You have your staff, they don't have to get their hands dirty. They're just, "Okay, this thing's running. It's good, let's just keep it as is." And obviously that will pay off with multiples.

And that's the biggest thing is driving those multiples up. And I think by having the proper process in place, by being automated, that's obviously the key.

Michael Murray: Do you envision that being part of your exit strategy?

Ty Brown: I'd love to one day. Yeah. Yeah, that's—I still think about where I want to be. I just—I don't need to be too big. I just like healthy net profit. That's the end of the day. That's really all that matters. And that's most of the time the only thing that really matters in a sale. So being at $10 million with a low net, I mean, I could run a $4 million with a strong net and be in a better place.

Michael Murray: I don't know if you—do you mind sharing like, you don't have to get into the real specifics, but maybe even some targets or give us some ranges. Like when you say a strong net or a low net, talk again, give us broad strokes. What are we talking about here?

Ty Brown: Well, from what I feel the standard is in the industry is about 7%, which I think is low. But we ended up last year just shy of 30%—29%. Our goal this year is 30%. It's a little low right now. Obviously, the first few months of the year, it's tough. You're fighting to keep your head above water with the slow months. But we're at a 24% right now, 23.8% I think, last time I looked. So for early season, that's strong.

And again, we have a goal of 30%. Now, adding some bodies this year, hey, that might take a little hit. We'll probably see next year, obviously, with adding some more top line revenue. But I think a target number would just be, if I could stay north of 20%, I'd be happy.

Michael Murray: So I guess one more just follow up question. What do you think's the big difference? If you said industry norm, let's just use that as the phrase, is around that 7% number and you're three to four times that. Why? What's the difference? Give us some of the secret sauce there. Maybe somebody's listening in that 7% to 10% range. What are some things that they might look to change?

Ty Brown: Well, I think it has a lot to do with our business model with subcontractors as well. So we don't have any overhead. So I think there's—I know we talk a lot in the PCA and industry about GP. And a lot of guys, it's great. We all need to get to 50% plus. But we also need to talk about net. And that's what—you sleep well over net at night, net pays the bills. So I think there is a problem with buying trucks, having buildings, all that kind of stuff, adding bodies.

I was listening to something the other day about a podcast or something about a painting business that was doing $40,000 a month. That business had strong GPs, but they had an estimator, a sales rep, production manager, and a scheduler or admin person. I'm like, "Whoa." You know, that's where, "Hey, that GP sounds great, but I just can't see that being sustainable with that overhead."

So again, what can be automated or what kind of resources can you do? I could easily have an admin sitting in the office right now. I don't. So I have a system in place where we use an IVR system for our phones. I answer every call. If I'm on an estimate and I can't answer the call, it's forwarded to an answering service. So no call goes to voicemail. Every call is answered. That answering service has our call scripts, has our booking page. They book, they know our minimum job size. They vet and qualify candidates.

So that's one thing that you can eliminate some overhead. Do you really need that admin position? I think, yeah, depending on what level you get to, depending what systems you have in place, that matters.

Like for me, I do all our QuickBooks. So I have experience in QuickBooks. So I don't need to hire an accountant to do QuickBooks. I do have an accountant that all they do is my end of month reconciliation. That's it. And my tax at the end of the year. But I'm coding. I come from a background where I have a stack of invoices on my desk every week and I want to sign every invoice. I want to see where all money is being spent and question that. And I still love doing that now. It doesn't take me a lot of time, but I have three days of my week with little blocks to just code my expenses in QuickBooks and I see everything that's coming in.

So yeah, to answer that question, I think it's just—I have to laugh when I see it's the end of the year and guys are like, "Our taxes are here. We got to spend some money and go buy trucks. What are you going to buy this year?" You're still spending that money. You know, it's getting around some taxes. But at the end of the day, you're still spending it. So I think it's, we're looking at GP, but really, it comes down to overhead, controlling that, controlling your head count, working on efficiencies and processes to boost that net profit.

Jon: Cool. Ty, thank you for sharing, man. Those are—I mean, obviously you're running your business very efficiently and growing. So I think there's a lot of things I'm hoping people can take out of this conversation. And so we thank you for your time. We're going to wrap it up here. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in. If you stayed till the end, you definitely should like and subscribe because obviously you found value. So it just makes sense.

We'd love to keep the conversation going. And we thank you, Ty, for being here. Michael, once again, thanks for being here with me. And we hope you guys have a great day. Thanks so much.

Ty Brown: Awesome. Thanks for having me, John. Thank you.

Michael Murray: Thanks, Ty. Keep crushing it. Nice job.

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